MISSION VIEJO : Race Relations Class for Teachers Sought

Taking a campaign to combat hate crimes to the classroom may be one way to improve tolerance among races and set an example for others, members of an area anti-hate crimes task force said Monday.

Through school programs, officials can “nip intolerance in the bud and give students an appreciation of the beauty of diversity,” said Mission Viejo Mayor Robert A. Curtis, who spearheaded the task force this summer after a 12-year-old black youth was beaten by a white man upset that the boy was walking with white children.

The five-member panel is expected to meet a final time Sept. 23, then make recommendations to the City Council for handling hate crimes and other related incidents.

During Monday’s task force meeting, Curtis suggested that the city pay for local teachers to participate in a classroom-based race relations program.

A World of Difference, sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith of Orange County, trains teachers to handle bigotry, misunderstanding and intolerance among students.

After six to eight hours of workshop training, teachers take their lessons back to the classroom and use them to expand their own and students’ cultural awareness of diverse races, religions and lifestyles.

Elizabeth Gale, the league’s regional director, said the program has been tested in two Capistrano Unified School District schools and seeks to prevent hate crimes in a county where they are “a serious problem.”

“We don’t want to see hate crimes,” Gale said. “We want to be there before it happens.”

Task force member Rusty Kennedy praised the league program and other classroom-based efforts, saying education is the most “cost-effective” way to deal with hate crimes.

“No amount of money . . . can undo the damage to a 12-year-old kid who is run down,” said Kennedy, who also is executive director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission. “There’s no way you can put a dollars and cents value on that suffering. The impact of it is permanent.”

In addition to an educational program, members are also discussing a 24-hour hot line for reporting hate crimes and a special hate crimes prosecutor for the city, Curtis said.

Although he thinks some of the measures are drastic, Curtis said they all send the right message. “For anyone who is a hardened bigot, we want to make it clear that if they should practice their bigotry in our city, they will be vigorously prosecuted,” Curtis said.